= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
loserthree comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (957)
I predict that it will be revealed that Quirrell or a closely related entity has been abusing Harry on and off throughout his life, to try and make him into a Dark Lord.
He can go to Harry's house like the time he played Father Christmas.
Obliviated memories leave residue, which is how in Chapter 88 the twins remembered that they could find people, in the castle, but couldn't remember how.
In the first chapter, Harry noticed that he believed in magic.
In chapter 16, Harry is almost reminded of something when he looks at Quirell, but can't remember what. And when Quirrell is first introduced, Harry ominously recognizes him
In the sixth chapter, McGonagall points out that Harry can act like an abused child.
Quirrell uses Obliviation and memory charms and as Mr. Cloak-and-Hat, he manipulated Blaise. And he uses Obliviation and memory charms more subtly, to change someone's mood and personality over time, as shown when he brute-force-save-scumed his way to making Hermione suspicious of Draco.
Quirrell expected Harry to become a Dark Lord when he spoke with him after the first class and was surprised that Harry aspired to science.
Quirrell expects the worst out of people, and so he expected that an abused Harry would be destined to darkness.
Edit: I just realized that Harry was probably abused almost every night (or day) for some significant period. There was a time turner involved, and that's why his sleep cycle is off.
My interpretation is that all of these are symptoms of Harry's dark side (which is the backup copy / horcrux of Voldemort somewhere in him).
This is an intriguing hypothesis, but are you aware that Eliezer also has this condition? I was under the impression that he was working off of his own experiences here and nothing more.
I think the simpler "conscious Horcrux inside Harry" theories are ruled out by the sorting hat: "I can tell you that there is definitely nothing like a ghost - mind, intelligence, memory, personality, or feelings - in your scar. Otherwise it would be participating in this conversation, being under my brim."
It is possible that the original, canon Harry has been completely replaced by Voldemort, or that the Horcrux has merged with Harry to form a new single personality. The sorting hat is also explicit that it does not remember previous students such as Tom Riddle as individuals. Therefore it would not notice if HJPEV were in fact Tom Riddle redux. However there's just one person in Harry, not two.
The hat talked specifically about objects under its brim. Maybe the horcrux is in some other part of Harry?
I probably heard that at some point; it's been years since this started, now. But I expect better of him than "I get ingrown toenails and ingrown toenails don't get enough attention from the public so I'm going to give my protagonist that problem, too."
Also, cannon Harry didn't have the sleep cycle problem. For the most part, there are in-universe reasons for departures from cannon other than, "That was dumb and I'm not writing a story with dumb in it."
Really? I hadn't heard that. Where did you see that? Could you link to it?
I talked to him and he told me.
Huh, there's a thing. I guess he just never mentioned it online.
I think I remember seeing him mention it somewhere online but I failed to find it within a few minutes of searching.
Edit: See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep-wake_disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorder#Normal_circadian_rhythms
Edit 2: In the August 27 2013 HP: MoR author's note Eliezer says that he has non-24 sleep disorder (but that he recently fixed it with help from MetaMed).
This is good evidence right up until you destroy your own case:
"Quirrell expected Harry to become a Dark Lord when he spoke with him after the first class and was surprised that Harry aspired to science."
Surprise that Harry aspired to science is not what someone who had been regularly communicating with Harry for a decade would experience.
On the other hand, you're firing with some fully automatic plot-armor-piercing bullets, there. Quirrell's primary motivation is clearly to groom Harry for some future, so if he waited to start doing so until Harry entered Hogwarts, why did he wait?
My favorite theory (Harry is an amnesiac transfer of Voldemort, Quirrelmort is just a horcrux) is only slightly better here. In this case Quirrelmort wouldn't anticipate how much a happy childhood might change Voldemort's personality and wouldn't see the need to remold himself until after that first encounter. That still doesn't explain why he wouldn't even check in on himself for a decade. It took that long for the "mort" part of Quirrelmort to take full control? Or maybe after taking control Quirrelmort knows he only has a year's worth of activity before decaying away, so he chose to save it when he would have extended contact with Harrymort and the latter would be studying magic?
So that Harry would have started to use magic, and could be seen to defeat Voldemort in combat, instead of just be part of some freakish accident that killed Voldemort.
Harry "defeats" Voldemort while Voldemort downloads into Harry, transforming himself from Villain to Savior and living happily ever after.
I don't know about this, for a couple of reasons.
1) If there was a time turner involved, why do the issues with Harry's sleep schedule persist even after he gets to Hogwarts and gains a time-turner of his own?
2) If someone spent a two-hour period of time abusing Harry and then time-turnering it away every day, wouldn't he get tired two hours early nstead of two hours late? That is to say, wouldn't his sleep cycle appear to be 22 hours instead of 26?
For the same reason his response persist even when the abuse no longer does: he's been conditioned.
It goes the other way. See, while he was being abused for two hours a day that no one else experienced, he was experiencing 26 hour days when everyone else was experiencing 24 hour days. So his body adjusted to that.
I'm having a little trouble making the timeline work out on this, since one wouldn't be able to notice his sleep issues while the time-turner abusing was ongoing; it would be a consequence that appeared after the fact. It's mentioned in chapter 2 that Harry was in school when he was seven; that could be argued as evidence that his sleep issues hadn't quite manifested at that point, and that he'd been pulled out of school soon after, once they did.
But that still leaves a period of three or four years for Harry to readjust to 24 hour days. You'd think Harry and his parents would have at least tried some kind of therapy, if the issue was severe enough to pull him out of school, and in the absence of some kind of reinforcing factor, why wouldn't said therapy at least have made some progress on the issue?
The story clearly states Harry's explicit interest in not attending school, so he wouldn't have tried anything to change his sleep pattern for that purpose, and I doubt by the age of 10 he'd found any other important reasons to motivate sleep pattern changing therapy.
I also doubt his parents' preferences matter, here, and even if they did prefer he change his habits, I doubt they'd press him into therapy without his explicit, cooperative, interest.
Fridge Horror.
Don't forget (emphasis added)
I don't think so. He's not supposed to use magic on Harry, and his attempts to influence him through their link fail as well.
His inability to influence Harry through the link does not reflect an inability to influence him at all. His influencing the everloving fuck out of Harry in Defense Class.
The part where he can't use magic on Harry is more of a poked hole in this theory, though. I can answer it, of course, but not without raising more questions. I'll think about that one.
Woah.
I don't even care if it's wrong, that's brilliant.
It's come up several times before. I believe the usual counterobjection is something like 'that if Harry is being kept up 6 hours later by a Timeturner in order to be abused, then he would fall asleep earlier and have an 18-hour cycle, not the opposite direction'.
Ah, but if he adapted, and the abuse stopped, then he would end up with a longer cycle. I think that's the idea, anyway.
I seriously doubt that's actually what happened though; not EY's style, somehow.
Well, covering up child abuse with a Timeturner seems like Eliezer 'you know what's a good abuse of Obliviation? covering up rape' Yudkowsky's style; it's just the adaptation that is extremely implausible since sleep cycles don't work that way.